Excel not adding correctly- Out by 1 c

Excel not adding correctly- Out by 1 c

Excel not adding correctly? Perhaps it is out by 1 c when you try and add up the decimals. The most common reason for this is that the numbers really contain more decimals than you are seeing and when Excel adds up it includes all decimals in the calculation, not just the ones you see.

For example, look at the sum of these numbers

10.134 + 10.134 = 20.268

The formatted to 2 decimals version of this would be

10.13 + 10.13 = 20.27

A boss checking your calculation may notice that adding 13c + 13c should equal 26c yet in the calculation it gives 27c. Excel is correct and the total is correct because of the hidden decimals but this may not help you with your boss.

A way to fix this is to use the ROUND function to remove these extra decimals. In this way when you and Excel look at the numbers you both see the same thing.